


Tomorrow

by hudders-and-hiddles (huddersandhiddles)



Series: Tumbling Hudders [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Almost Kiss, Caring Sherlock, Confessions, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post Mary, Post-Season/Series 03, Sulking John, dinner at Angelo's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 07:07:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5038630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huddersandhiddles/pseuds/hudders-and-hiddles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“What are you doing?”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Sherlock meets John’s gaze. His blue eyes are a raging sea, a dangerous swirl of anxiety and sorrow and anger. “Taking you to dinner,” Sherlock says calmly, and the tiniest glimmers of joy and confusion float to the surface, joining the ebb and flow of emotion playing out across John’s face.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Why?”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Sherlock raises an eyebrow at him. “Because you were sulking.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> This comes from my expanding collection of tumblr ficlets. It has therefore not been beta'ed or Britpicked.

“Get dressed. We’re going out.”

“I don’t want to go out,” John retorts.

“Noted. Now go get dressed, all the same,” Sherlock says.

John huffs out a put-upon sigh. “Is there a case?”

“Yes,” Sherlock lies. “And unless you plan on going in your pyjamas, I suggest you get dressed. Quickly.”

John glares at him, but Sherlock stalks off to put on his coat, trying to seem more impatient than he is. Of course there isn’t a case, but he needs to get John out of the flat, out of this funk, out of his own head. Normally, Sherlock is the quiet one, the one who retreats within his mind and doesn’t surface again for hours on end, the one who goes so still that it’s almost as if he weren’t there at all. Not John. John is quiet, yes, but in a different way. He’s the kind of domestic quiet that never quite lets you forget that there’s another person home; he may go hours without speaking a word, but there’s still the dull clack of porcelain on wood when he sets down his cup, the gentle rustle of turning newspaper pages, the whispered swish of shifting limbs against sofa cushions. John’s is a comfortable silence that spreads over their flat like a blanket, warm and soft and comforting, keeping them both grounded in the tranquility of a day spent at home together.

But today, John is the one trapped in his own head--introspective in a way that sets Sherlock’s teeth on edge with worry. His silence fills the flat and Sherlock’s head with an unpleasant buzz, an absence of sound rather than the downy quiet that usually fills the background of their between-case routine. Sherlock has tried everything to draw him out. He’d been stroppy, flopping on to the sofa and sighing heavily. He’d played his violin, even the pieces he doesn’t particularly enjoy but knows John loves. He’d even intentionally dropped a petri dish on the kitchen floor, hoping the sound of breaking glass would draw John out, but like everything else Sherlock tried, it had no effect--John hadn’t even seemed to notice it. Sherlock cleaned up the mess and stopped just short of letting the glass nick him, knowing that John would think that more than a bit not good, and decided his only remaining course of action was to get John out of 221B for the evening. He’d snuck away to his bedroom to change and call Angelo to reserve their usual table, coming back to find John still staring, unmoving, at the window across from his chair.

John gives in with a sigh, trudging across the sitting room and up the stairs. “Wear something nice,” Sherlock calls up after him.

 

When the taxi lets them out in front of Angelo’s, John stops short. “Sherlock,” he says in warning, his jaw set tense and tight.

Sherlock rolls his eyes and reaches for the door, holding it open for John who stares him down, but Sherlock stares back and eventually John relents and walks inside. Angelo beams at them and shows them to their usual table. Sherlock can feel John watching him warily as he orders their usual. As soon as Angelo steps away, John snaps, “What are you doing?”

Sherlock meets John’s gaze. His blue eyes are a raging sea, a dangerous swirl of anxiety and sorrow and anger. “Taking you to dinner,” Sherlock says calmly, and the tiniest glimmers of joy and confusion float to the surface, joining the ebb and flow of emotion playing out across John’s face.

“Why?”

Sherlock raises an eyebrow at him. “Because you were sulking,” he says, the _obviously_ implied, and John scoffs, opening his mouth to reply. “You were, John,” Sherlock says, cutting him off. “You hadn’t said a single word all day until I told you to get dressed. You didn’t even flinch at the sound of broken glass.” John’s brow wrinkles in confusion. “You didn’t complain when I flopped on to the sofa in a strop. You didn’t notice when I played my violin for you. Nothing. You can be angry at me for lying to you about the case if you want, but for god’s sake, stop sulking.”

John’s jaw clenches dangerously. “Stop sulking?” he asks in an angry whisper. “Stop sulking? You think it’s just that easy do you? That you can tell me to stop and it all just goes away? Ok, sure, that makes it all better. Whatever would I have done if Sherlock bloody Holmes hadn’t told me to stop sulking?” His eyes bore into Sherlock, and Sherlock has to look away, unable to stand the intensity of that gaze. He’s never done well at being the focus of John’s anger, though it still happens far more often than he would like to admit. He looks at his lap, at the table, out the window, anywhere but at John as he tries to work out what to say, how to keep from making this worse. With John that’s all he ever seems to do--make things worse.

Angelo drops off their plates, and the awkward silence stretches out on the other side, the food at least giving them a convenient excuse for the lack of conversation. Sherlock risks a glance at John to find that he’s staring resolutely at his plate. This isn’t at all what Sherlock had wanted from the evening. The point was to get John out of his head entirely, not merely trapped in it at a different location. Sherlock has to say something, do something. He sets his fork carefully on his plate and looks up at John, taking a deep breath as he steels himself to speak. “John, I…”

John’s still too lost in his thoughts to notice the words, so Sherlock reaches across the table and gently lays his hand across John’s wrist. John looks down at the touch and then up at Sherlock’s face as if surprised to find himself here. Sherlock pulls his hand back, flashes him a tiny smile, and tries again. “John, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lied to get you out here. I just… I didn’t want you to sulk, and nothing else was working, and I just thought that maybe if I could get you out of the flat it would help, but apparently I’ve made things worse, as usual, and I don’t know how to fix this, any of this.” Sherlock knows he’s rambling but can’t seem to stop himself now that he’s started. “I’m sorry that things with Mary didn’t work out. I’m sorry that I didn’t figure it all out sooner so that I could have saved you the pain of this. I’m sorry that today’s your anniversary, but I can’t make that not true. I wish I could, but I can’t, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry that she turned out to be who she was. I’m sorry that I failed to see that. And I’m sorry that even though I tried to help you fix it, that I failed at that, too. All that matters to me is your happiness. That’s all that’s ever mattered, and I’m sorry that I can’t seem to ever get it right, to do the things that will make you happy. I only ever seem to hurt you more, and I’m sorry.”

“Stop it,” John cuts in, his chest heaving in and out with his sharp pants of breath. Sherlock snaps his mouth closed and drops his gaze to his lap. _Great. Managed to make it worse, yet again_. _Stupid_. “Just stop it,” John says. “None of what happened-- _none_ of it--is your fault, Sherlock.” _That can’t be right. It’s all my fault_. Sherlock shakes his head to deny it, but a hand under his chin arrests the movement and lifts his head to meet John’s gaze. The softness Sherlock sees there, the gentle crinkling around John’s eyes, the easing of the tension in his jaw, is surprising. “It’s not, Sherlock. It’s not your fault. I didn’t see any of those things about Mary, and I didn’t expect you to either.”

_But I should have_. “No,” John says firmly, even though Sherlock didn’t say anything. “No. I know you think that because you’re the world’s only consulting detective, because you’re a bloody genius, that you should have seen it, but you’re wrong.” John slides his hand to Sherlock’s neck, his thumb sweeping up and down over the point where Sherlock’s pulse flickers, and Sherlock has to will himself not to lean into the touch. John watches him intently, his eyes flickering over Sherlock’s face, looking for something. Sherlock holds himself still and lets John look. He must find whatever it is he’s looking for because he gives Sherlock a curt nod. “I wasn’t sulking today,” he says. “I was thinking, yes, but I wasn’t sulking.”

“John, I know sulking. You were definitely sulking,” Sherlock tells him.

“Can you just let me say this?” John asks sharply, and Sherlock stops, abashed. “Please,” John adds to soften the blow. Sherlock nods, and he continues. “I was thinking about my wedding. I married Mary a year ago today. I didn’t know who or what she really was then. I thought she was the woman she was pretending to be, the woman I wanted to spend my life with.” Sherlock swallows uncomfortably, and John resumes stroking his thumb against Sherlock’s neck, easing some of the tension that’s building in his chest. “It should have been one of the happiest days of my life. Instead I spent the whole day--I spent all of _today_ \--thinking about how I married the wrong person.”

Sherlock’s throat goes dry and his breath catches in his chest. Surely he can’t mean… He can’t. It’s not possible. Sherlock shakes his head a fraction of an inch to each side and manages to rasp, “Who…”

John doesn’t say a word. Instead he leans forward, and Sherlock automatically leans into him in response, their eyes closing as John angles his head and nuzzles his nose up and down the side of Sherlock’s. This slight touch is electrifying, and Sherlock longs to feel the spark of John’s lips against his own, to feel that charge surge through his body until every nerve lights up. John’s breath puffs warm and moist against his lips, mere ghosts of a kiss to come, but when John doesn’t move any closer, Sherlock realizes he’s waiting for permission, for a sign that this is okay, that Sherlock wants this, too. And he does. Oh how he does.

Sherlock forces himself back and peels his eyes open again. John’s face is falling, even before he can say a word. “John, don’t,” he begins, reaching a hand out to cup John’s cheek, to stop him from looking like he might crack in two. “Don’t do that. I…” How can he say this without screwing it up, without making it worse as he’s been doing all day, as he’s been doing his whole life? Sentiment really isn’t his area, but for John he has to try. _Keep it simple and brief_ , John’s voice echoes from the depths of his mind. He hadn’t listened then, but maybe he should listen now. Maybe it could work. “Yes,” he breathes. “Yes, I want this. I want you.”

John’s small gasp reassures him that he’s saying something right for once. “Just… Just not today, ok?” He wills John to understand. This day is already filled with memories tinged with regret and sorrow. Over time, the emotions associated with this date will fade, but they’ll never go away completely. It’s bad enough that the sadness of this day has to be part of their story, that John should have any unhappy anniversaries at all, but Sherlock doesn’t want it to color the memories of this, of the first time they kiss, of the first time they say the things they should’ve said so long ago. “Not today.”

“Tomorrow?” John asks, and Sherlock breathes a sigh of relief that he understands.

He swipes his thumb along John’s cheekbone and smiles. “Tomorrow.”

They finish dinner in a much more companionable silence, throwing furtive glances each other’s way between bites. After they finish their pasta, they decide to call it a night, Angelo waving off their attempts to pay him, as usual. On the walk home, if their arms brush a little more often, if their hands graze each other a little more easily, if Sherlock curls his pinky and locks it around John’s, neither of them says a word. They walk back to Baker Street, pinky-in-pinky, comfortably quiet and excited for the promise of tomorrow.

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr as [hudders-and-hiddles](http://hudders-and-hiddles.tumblr.com).


End file.
